a sense of style, a sense of humour & a sensitivity

Month: May 2008

I was sitting having my lunch in my usual lunch place today when the manager who was also on her break and sitting beside me and her other regulars, sighed and with a tardy look on her face grimaced and said to nobody in particular “why is it that they print shift like this?”. She was referring to a news item about a person who was hit and dragged under a bus on a street nearby. The reaction of those in the immediate vicinity was to make little of it. So I asked her what her issue was with the information, and her reply was that she didnt want to know about shift like that and that it was too gross to think about and that they didnt need to write about it. Hers is not the first time Ive witnessed this kind of response to news delivered in a graphic nature. People I work with, and people close to me have had this numbness and lack of interest in acknowledging the fact that they are part of and have a direct or indirect relationship to everything. So I asked this manager why she was reading the newspaper in the first place? Her answer was to get up and walk away.

I often wonder about either the intrinsic incapability to deal with the most basic sense of responsibility, or the lack of desire, and what is in that belief structure and how it occurs. I often wonder about those who cannot deal with graphic news of things which occur in the world in which we contribute to directly and indirectly. I believe it is easy and convenient for us to blame the media, even though we are the ones the media is in existence for. It is my firm belief that it is a cyclical pattern driven by fear of change, in that we dont care because the media doesn’t care, and apparent peer pressure. The media is channelled by what is socially acceptable and what is socially acceptable is in-turn generated by a desire for acceptance. Acceptance for Identity is quite possibly a major factor in this. Acceptance issues are very apparent here in the US, and in most modern first world nations where there is a large population of converging ethnicity. Identity has a direct correlation to social acceptance, and the media -just like society- is dependent on that acceptance of credibility and sociability. Certain countries, (France jumps to mind), have evolved significantly differently in that theres is a population of inclusion, and with that comes awareness and social responsibility from the ground up. Every man woman and child has a direct sense of being plugged into their world. France is known for fast moving political climates, opinion, resolve and as a side-effect also known for its civil disobedience. Unfortunately the intelligentsia transcend themselves indefatigably from one form of oblivion to another and become so distant from the ‘proletariat’ by their inane sense of disclosure within very limited spheres of influence in the incredible belief that communication and discussions between their own echelons is the antidote for problem solving en masse, therefor follows the cyclical mechanism of elitism.

This whole concept ties in somewhat with my burgeoning belief that the level of choice in the US is now having a detrimental effect on society, nationally and globally as American culture is mirrored across the globe. Freedom of choice, in its current environment, is very attractive in an immature and short sighted way in that the appeal of choice is somehow linked psychologically, with a sense of control and power, however, interestingly enough, these freedoms of choice which are available to us are as much chaperoned by the very fact that the choice has already been made for you by the lack of real options open to you in the first place. With choice is responsibility; responsibility to offer the right elements for choice meaning; that the ‘elements’ are equidistant in design and cover the gamut of possibility over an equal and shared horizon, or to put it simply the options for choice cover the broadest spectrum from black to white and back to black again. Also, choice is responsibility to accept the knowledge of conviction in someone’s ability to understand what it is they are choosing and why it is they have that choice in the first place, meaning its vital for us to know why there are four choices and that those choices cover the scale completely and that we know why we have these choices and also we know why we are making the choice in the first place.